
Qass. 
Book. 



rD^^ 



^rief and Butg. 




A DISCOUESE. 




BY HENRY DARLING, D. D. 





GRIEF AlffD DUTY. 



DISCOUESE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, 



APRIL 19th, 1865, THE DAY OF THE 



FUNERAL OBSEQUIES 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



By henry darling, D. D., 

!Pastor or the Chnrch. 



ALBANY : 

S. R. GJ-RA.Y, JPUBIjISHKR. 
1865. 




.8 



The time of the delivery of this discourse is sufBcient to indicate the 
haste of its preparation. It contains nothing more than the expression 
of some of the first thoughts that our great national bereavement 
suggests ; and it is only in deference to repeated solicitations that the 
author consents to its publication. 

The discourse was repeated at the United States Military Hospital of 
this city, on the afternoon of the Sabbath April 23d, 1865. 



DISCOURSE. 



Genesis xxxv, 19, 20, 21. 
"And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is 
Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar npon her grave : that is the pillar 
of Rachel's grave unto this day. And Israel journeyed, and spread his 
tent beyond the tower of Edar." 

The affliction recorded in these verses, has been 
the portion of not a few of our race, in every age of the 
world. Earthly affinities that we deem perpetual, are 
suddenly dissolved ; and worldly ties that we imagine 
are ot cable strength, are in a moment, and forever 
sundered. Friends are but loaned to us by the Giver 
of every good gift, and often at the moment of our 
highest expectations are taken from us. Feiv families 
can be found that have no vacant chair at their table, 
and fewer hearts in which the death of some loved 
one has not left an aching void. The people of God 
are rapidly striking their tents in this wilderness, and 
entering into the palace not made with hands. They 
are going up from this gloomy crypt below, to the 
grand cathedral above ; and putting off this earthly 
house of their tabernacle, are being clothed upon 
with that house which is from heaven. The home of 
many a man in this world, like a dissolving view, is 



6 

gradually vanishing from earth, and is daily develop- 
ing itself in the skies. Heaven is rapidly becoming 
colonized from earth, and a man need not himself to 
have been long in this vale of tears, to have seen so 
many that he loved successively emigrate to that 
other land, as to make it, even for the earthly friends 
that dwell there, the home where his heart is. 

In a word, few are the travelers to eternity who 
do not pass on their way thither through the land of 
Bochim. How, in this passage, it becomes us to 
demean ourselves, is to all an important inquiry, 
and one to which we may, by an examination of my 
text, find a beautiful answer. 

During a journey, undertaken by Jacob at the 
express command of Jehovah, from Succoth to Bethel, 
Rachel, the wife of his youth and of his love, died. 
In the strange city of Ephrath, the j)atriarch was 
constrained to consign to the grave, the precious 
remains of one who had endeared herself to him by 
years of faithful affection, and by a cheerful and happy 
participation of his sorrows, his companion, amid all 
his wanderings, and the light and charm of his dwel- 
ling. " And Eachel," says my text, " died, and was 
buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem." 

But what, in the experience of this affliction, were 
the feelings, and what was the conduct of this emi- 
nently devoted servant of God ? Was Jacob stoical 
and indifferent ? Did he fail to mourn that a holy and 
beloved object of his affection had been removed by 
death? On the contrary, Jacob was deeply sen- 



sible of tlie loss that he had sustained, and his heart 
was thereby filled with anguish. He did not in death, 
forget one who in life had so constantly ministered 
to his happiness. As a testimony at once for his grief 
at her sudden decease, and his high appreciation of 
her character, upon the cold earth beneath which slie 
was sleeping he erected a monument to her memory. 
" He set," is the language of my text, " a pillar upon 
her grave," so permanent in its nature, and conspicu- 
ous in position, that it remained, and was called the 
pillar of Rachel, not only until the time of Moses, 
but even to the day when Saul was anointed King 
of Israel. 

And similar feelings it is right that every individual 
should have in affliction. If some one dear and 
beloved, has been removed from earth, we ought to 
sorrow. Humanity demands it, and the Savior weep- 
ing over the tomb of Lazarus, allows it. Sorrow is 
an affection, implanted by the Creator in the soul for 
wise and beneficent purposes, and it should not be 
unduly repressed. God has opened in our nature a 
fountain of tears, and he who bids us restrain that 
fountain when God has touched its spring, demands 
us to act contrary to the very design of our constitu- 
tion. If the gem that shone so beautifully by my 
fireside, and in the rays and sparkles of which I 
rejoiced so long, has been removed, it is natural for 
me to weep, and the man who bids me dry up my 
tears only mocks and degrades me. 



8 

As God also intends, when lie bestows liis gifts, 
that they should be received with smiles of gratitude, 
so he desires that when they are recalled, they should 
be surrendered with " drops of sacred grief." Tears 
are the silent, pure, unsophisticated testimony of the 
heart, to the excellence of the gift God in mercy gave, 
and no doubt in mercy took away. We should have 
no gratitude in the reception of blessings, if we had 
no sorrow at their loss. 

But though the Patriarch Jacob mourned at the 
death of Eachel, and as a testimony of his affection 
set, as we have seen, a pillar upon her grave, yet he 
did not — it is fact worthy of special notice — suffer 
his grief to prevent him from actively and faithfully 
discharging every duty. "And Israel journeyed," 
says my text, " and spread his tent beyond the tower 
of Edar." 

Jacob was called in the providence of God, to 
act a very important part in the history of the 
Christian Church. At the very time this sad 
calamity overtook him, he was by the express com- 
mand of Jehovah on his way to Bethel, the house of 
the Lord, and the place where God had previously 
revealed to him by vision the future triumphs of his 
kingdom. The Patriarch had a great work given him 
by God to perform. He had put his hand to the 
plough, and although doubtless when this affliction 
first broke upon him, his resolution trembled, and he 
was almost persuaded to turn back, and seek to allay 
the poignancy of his grief, by mingling in the famil- 



iar society of his old home, yet at length triumphing 
over all these evil suggestions, with a wounded and 
a stricken heart, he pressed on in the path of duty. 
Having consigned to the earth the precious remains 
of his friend, and erected over them an appropriate 
monument of his grief, Jacob, in obedience to the 
command of Jehovah, continued his journey to 
Bethel — in other words, faithfully met every obliga- 
tion that was imposed upon him as a servant of God. 

The same should be true of us all in affliction. 
When grief impairs the health and preys upon the 
constitution ; when it paralyzes the energies, and 
benumbs and stupefies the soul, so that incumbent 
duties, personal or relative, civil or sacred, are 
neglected, and the soul does nothing but lie down 
upon the sepulchre and weep, then is it a sorrow 
unworthy of the honorable name which the Christian 
bears. 

Indeed, so to mourn over an affliction as to be 
thereby unfitted for the discharge of present and 
future duties, what a complete perversion is it of all 
the real designs of earthly trial ! Affliction is the 
nursery in which God is training His people for a 
more vigorous manhood. It is the gymnasium in 
which He seeks to increase and strengthen their 
moral and spiritual power. What a perversion of 
His design, that, coming out from this nursery or 
gymnasium, weary and worn out with the discipline 
through which they have passed, they should lie 

down in listless inactivity ! 

2 



10 

The application of these principles, — pertinent to 
every instance of affliction that ever visits men in 
this world, — to that particular sorrow that has now 
convened ns, and that lies to-day so heavily ui)on 
every heart, opens to us, if I mistake not, the only 
two channels in which our meditations can profit- 
ably flow. 

First : We do well to mourn the loss of our late 
beloved President. His death is a great national 
bereavement. It is meet that we to-day set uj) upon 
his grave the monument of our warmest love, and 
that the whole nation should bedew it with their tears. 
But, secondly : called like Jacob to go up, as a people 
to our Bethel, on the highway to lieaee and liberty ^ this 
sore bereavement on the road, should not hinder or 
impede our footsteps, but like the old Patriarch, we, 
in the continued and faithful performance of every 
duty, should "journey on, and spread our tents beyond 
the tower of Edar." To the amplification of these 
two thoughts, allow me, in what remains of this dis- 
course, to invite attention. 

The cliaracter of President Lincoln is a true occa- 
sion for weeping over his death. Doubtless the time 
has not yet come for us to weigh, this, in a perfectly 
even balance ; and certainly our present position is 
for such a work exceedingly unfavorable. In the 
first gush of sorrow that our hearts feel for the loss 
of any earthly friend, we are but poorly prepared to 
form any critical estimate of his worth. Making, 
however, every possible allowance, for the peculiarly 



11 

tender feelings that we all feel for him, on account 
of his untimely death, he must he a bitter partizan 
indeed, that would not concede to our late President 
a very rare combination of both moral, and intel- 
lectual excellence. Called, in the providence of God, 
to the chief magistracy of this nation, at the most 
perilous moment that she has ever experienced in her 
whole history, and with no precedents to guide him, 
it must be conceded, that, as a whole, Mr. Lincoln's 
administration has been conducted with remarkable 
prudence, and consummate ability. Indeed, whatever 
difference of opinion may have, at the time, been 
honestly had, as to the wisdom of many of his im- 
portant official acts, I suppose that they are few who, 
in the light of our recent victories, and the present 
position of freedom in our land, do not regard them 
with favor. 

Some have denied to our late President the appel- 
lation of great, and, if a wide range of scholar- 
ship, or brilliant genius is essential to constitute 
true greatness, justly. But surely, he possessed 
just those peculiar traits of character, that were 
essential for the wise conduct of public affairs in a 
season of great peril. He was characterized by great 
calmness of temper. He was not a man of impulse. 
His heart was not so governed by strong passion, 
and tumultuous emotion, as to make his acts indis- 
creet and hasty. Whatever he did, was deliberate 
and well considered. 



12 

He was preeminently a practical man. He had 
no mere theories of government. With a remark- 
able quick perception of the true relation of 
things, his acts took their i)articular shape out of 
ever-varying circumstances. Either naturally con- 
servative, or made so by the consciousness of high 
responsibility, he sought more to be directed by 
Providence than to direct and govern it. And yet 
Mr. Lincoln was a man of great firmness of opinion. 
Naturally cautious, as I have just said, in assuming 
a position, he was at the same time exceedingly 
strenuous, after it was assumed, in maintaining 
it. His whole administration is marked by a steady 
progress toward one end. We see no flowing back 
in the onward wave. Ground once fairly taken was 
, never given up. Some men at his very side chided 
him for sloivness, but it did not quicken his step, and 
others equally near to him in influence, rebuked him 
for his hastiness, but it availed nothing to check his 
onward progress. Seizing, at the very moment of his 
inauguration, the first link of that chain — if I may so 
speak — which was to draw us out as a nation of that 
horrible vortex of secession into which almost half 
the states had fallen, Mr. Lincoln never once 
relaxed his grasp upon it, but with a stalwort hand 
gathered slowly, but in a sure succession, each other 
link to himself, until at last our political salvation 
was secured. 

And if to this you will now add the twin virtues 
of an intense x>atriotism, and a lofty and noble per- 



13 

sonal disinterestedness, the political portrait of our 
murdered President is almost complete. 

In leaving his quiet home, to assume the high 
functions of state, you remember that our dear 
departed ruler, publicly requested an interest in the 
prayers of God's people. And never, at least since 
the days of Washington, has such a request found 
such a response. From the golden censer of our great 
high priest, has the sweet incense of i)rayer in his 
behalf, been constantly ascending. The intercession 
of the saints have belted with a zone of holy influ- 
ence, every day and hour of his whole administra- 
tion. And if the grave has seldom closed upon an 
American statesman, whose character was so resplen- 
dent with virtue, we doubt not, but that many an 
excellence heaven bestowed, in answer to her peo- 
ple's prayer. 

But, the time of our beloved President's death, as 
well as his character, is a true occasion for sorrow. 
The soldier's work in our terrible internecine war 
seems almost ended. We have probably fought the 
last great battle of this rebellion, and hereafter 
the only flag that is to wave from the lakes to the 
gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the red, 
white and blue. Indeed, already does it float in tri- 
umph, not only over the capital of the so-called con- 
federacy, and of every seaport along the whole 
Atlantic coast line, but over the very fortress where 
it was first constrained to succumb to treason. But 
where tlie soldier's work closes, there the task of the 



14 

statesman commences. The first pnlls down, it is 
the more difiicult province of the last to build up : 
and Mr. Lincoln was not a warrior but a civilian. 
And from his character as already described, as well 
as from his peculiarly intimate acquaintance with 
all our public affairs, how much did we naturally 
expect from him in this great work of reestablishing 
between the discordant sections of our country, har- 
mony and good will. 

If our late President was great in time of war, 
I have a very mistaken idea of him, if he would 
not have been far greater in a time of transition 
from peace to union. He possessed the very charac- 
ter of a iKtcifier. His heart was full of gentle- 
ness and love. He was not able to cherish a 
bitter feeling, or a vindictive purpose. The last 
sentence in his last inaugural, reveals to us his 
very heart. " With malice toward none, with charity 
for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to 
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for 
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with 
all nations." 

That very conservatism which iDCCuliarly charac- 
terized Mr. Lincoln was, so far as we see, just 
what at this time we needed. In that struggle 
wliicli has just commenced in -this land between 
j ustice and mercy, that neitlier may gain a complete 



16 

victory, it was just such an evenly balancing intel- 
lect as his, a firm but loving hand, that we needed. 
Great peril will certainly here come to the state, if r«fZi- 
cal views, on either side of this great question are to 
prevail. 

As free also from all theories, as regarding facts 
as they are, and adjusting his policy to them, how 
much in these days of reconstruction do we need 
just such a mind to direct us ! To those who atten- 
tively read a speech made by our late President upon 
hearing the news of the surrender of Gen. Lee's army, 
upon that much vexed question of the political status 
of the states lately in rebellion, I need not allude 
to his truly Baconian and common sense method of 
disposing of the whole difiiculty. 

Moreover, how invaluable in the pacification of our 
great national troubles would have been the council 
and policy of our late President, as seen in the almost 
unbounded confidence that the i^eople reposed in him ! 
What Motley says of William the Silent, we may with 
hardly any less truthfulness say of Abraham Lix- 
COLN. " There was such general confidence in his 
sagacity, courage and purity, that the nation had come 
to think with his brain, and to act with his hand." * 
Surely at such a time, — amid the hosannas of vic- 
tory and at the very moment when the warrior was 
retiring from the stage, that the statesman might 
take his place, — that he who was the foremost in all 



" The United Netherlands, vol. 1, page 1. 



16 

that company should hav^e fallen, is a large element 
in our sorrow. 

And then, to add poignancy to our grief, there is the 
wretched manner of his death. So far, in our history 
as a nation, we have been happily exempt from those 
political assassinations that have so frequently dark- 
ened the records of the old world. And from our 
progress in a Christian civilization and refinement, we 
had really supj)osed ourselves to have outgrown such 
a possibility. We have not marveled much in see- 
ing the princes of Europe, with their armed attend- 
ants, Napoleon with the bristling bayonets of his 
grenadiers, and the old Pope surrounded with the 
stalwort forms of his Swiss guards, for we were in a 
despotic country, and such men might well tremble 
for their lives ; but surely, in this land of freedom 
and equal rights, no such security for human life can 
be needed, as no such peril can be felt. 

But alas ! for that depth of wickedness to which this 
ungodly rebellion has brought man. The murder of 
the head of a great nation, of a man of the kindest and 
most generous emotions, while sitting quietly in his 
chair, surrounded by his family and friends, is only the 
culmination of a rebellion that was commenced by 
purloining public property, arms, ships, forts, navy 
yards, and continued by the establishment at home of 
a military despotism that gave the citizen no choice 
between conscription and death ; a rebellion that 
stripped the wounded on the battle field of every 
article of clothing, made personal ornaments out of 



17 

the bones of the dead, and starved, by thousands, 
those who had, by the fortunes of war, become its 
prisoners. True, our real loss would have been just 
the same had our dear President died a peaceful and 
natural death. But this terrible assassination ! this 
passage, almost in a moment, by a ruffian's hand, into 
eternity, of one whose life and health God so kindly 
watched over and preserved, and who was seemingly 
of such moment to our country, O ! it is this that 
makes our grief so tumultuous ; and that, added to the 
other considerations already noted, converts every 
sanctuary in our land into a Bochim ; brings this afflic- 
tion home to every bosom with the force of a personal 
bereavement, and to-day causes this whole nation 
tearfully to follow to the grave its venerated head. 

But I must pass from this view of our occasion for 
grief, to speak of the duties that, as citizens of this 
great country, are still before us to be faithfullj' met 
and performed. I have already said that this great 
national bereavement has met us, just as Jacob's deep 
personal affliction met him, on the highway of duty — 
while journeying to peace and liberty as he was to 
Bethel — and hence that, while with him we ought to 
mourn, with him we should likewise continue on in our 
way — " spread our tents beyond the tower of Edar." 
Now what are some of these duties that the day 
imposes ? 

The first is courage. God's purposes never depend 
for their fulfillment upon any human instrumentality. 
3 



18 

Men, to our purblind vision, seem oftentimes almost 
essential for the accomplishment, either in the church 
or state, of some great result ; they are in our esteem 
the pivot upon which everything turns ; but when, in 
his providence, God removes them, how easily by other 
instrumentalities does he carry on his work ! Protes- 
tantism did not die in Europe when William, the 
Prince of Orange, fell in his own palace by the murder- 
ous shot of a young Burgundian, nor when the 
renowned Gustavus Adolphus was, by an Austrian 
bullet, slain on the field of Lutzen. ^o, men die, 
but not so those great interests of truth that they 
may have lived to promote. Truth lives on, and 
when one of her greatest champions may have fallen, 
is sure to find another who will take up and plead 
her cause. 

The very structure, likewise, of our government 
makes it almost impossible that the death of any one 
man should seriously change its policy, or endanger 
its stability. " If the Emperor IsTapoleon," says one of 
the journalists of the day, " had been assassinated, 
all France would have been in revolution before 
twenty-four hours had passed, while the death of 
President Lincoln, sudden and awful as it was, did 
not interrupt, for an instant, the grand movements of 
our republican government. Take courage, then, I 
say, my dear hearers. Those great interests that you 
have prized so highly, and that seemed a few days 
ago so near, are not seriously jeoparded even by 



19 

this crushiDg bereavement. It cannot be made to 
galvanize any new life into the defunct carcass of 
rebeldom. It cannot raise for them a new armj^ or 
impart any fresh courage to the remnant that still 
remains. It cannot open to their commerce a single 
blockaded port. It cannot bring back into bondage 
and manacle anew, a single slave that has already 
breathed the fresh air of freedom. Nor can it annul 
or in the slightest degree change a single edict of the 
government. No, though the body of Abraham Lin- 
coln may be mouldering in the dust, yet his soul will 
— in him who has already assumed the responsibilities 
of his office — be marching on and on, till the great 
purposes of his administration accomplished, peace 
and liberty will be enjoyed throughout the whole land. 
Courage then I say, courage ! 

But, with courage, the duties of this day demand 
that all the bitterness and rancor of party spirit 
should be forgotten, and that men of every possible 
shade of political belief should now stand together 
for the support of the nation. 

Lord Macauley, in one of his lays of ancient 
Eome, thus speaks of that people in the palmy days 
of the Eepublic. 

Then none was for a party ; 
Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor. 
And the poor man loved the great. 
Then lands were fairly portioned ; 
Then spoils were fairly sold. 
The Romans were like brothers 
In the brave days of old. 



20 

O ! that the affliction that God has sent upon this 
people might here recall them to duty! Children 
are very prone, you know, to remember their un- 
kindness to each other, and to feel strongly attracted 
toward each other when summoned from their far oif 
wanderings to the old homestead ; together to bury 
their common i)arent. It is an adage that affliction 
makes brothers of us all. Would that this might be 
the result of our great national bereavement. 

Scarcely anything, I think, for the last half cen- 
tury, has had toward this nation so threatening 
an aspect as the extreme selfishness and passion 
of party. Our public men, oftentimes, do not look 
at the real desirableness of a proposed measure, 
but entirely at its influence in securing the political 
ascendancy of their party. They seek their own, 
not their country's good. They belong, not to our 
whole nation, but to some little clique, some poor 
section or fraction only of our great brotherhood. 
Would, I repeat it, that the affliction under which 
we now mourn might lead us all nearer to the altar 
of our country, and beget within us all a more noble 
and unselfish patriotism. 

And I cannot here refrain from expressing the 
lileasure which I have felt in observing, since the 
death of Mr. Lincoln, the tone on this subject of 
the press, without any distinction of party. It has 
greatly rejoiced my heart to see on every side the 
exhortation, "Let us rally as one man to the support 
of our government in this crisis." Let no man in 



21 

an hour like this think, much less talk, of party or 
partisanship. Let there be no crimination or recrim- 
ination. Let us all sacrifice our preferences and our 
prejudices upon the altar of our country, and rally 
around the man ayIio rises in the room of a stricken 
down predecessor, and make him feel that he has the 
physical and moral support of the whole iDeople." 
Should such a spirit prove itself to -be more than 
words, should it manifest itself in appropriate acts, 
and be more than ephemeral, well might this whole 
nation exclaim : " It was good for us that we were 
afflicted." 

But this is not all. The act that calls us this day 
to mourn, — the culmination, as I have already said 
of that evil spirit which first broke out in treason four 
years ago, and opened hostile cannon upon Sumter, — 
is it not our duty to be led thereby to a deeper and 
truer conviction, of the moral turpitude of a social 
system that could beget and foster such a spirit? " By 
their fruits," said our Savior, " ye shall know them." 

Among all the men educated under the influence, 
and in the midst of northern society, I do not believe 
that you could find an individual who would delibe- 
rately, and day by day plan, and finally execute, so 
fiendish an act as that of Mr. LI^X'OLX's assassination. 
Depravity does indeed ripen, even with us, fearfully, 
but to attain so gigantic a growth as this, it must have 
its roots in a more congenial soil. The most terrible, 
and as it seems to me, wicked event of centuries, 



22 

nothing but long familiarity and close contact with 
that whole system of oppression, as it has existed at 
the south for years, and with the spirit that it engen- 
ders, could ever have made it possible. 

I say this with no desire to intensify that passion 
which has already gone down deep into the heart of 
this nation, and which, in the revengeful spirit that it 
may awaken, i.s in danger, perhaps, of exciting an 
undue hate in loyal bosoms ; I allude to it only that 
our eyes may be opened to see the enormity of a sys- 
tem that could x)roduce such a character as its legiti- 
mate fruitage — a system that has brought upon us 
all those calamities that have afflicted us for years, 
and to destroy which has doubtless been the purpose 
of God, in constraining us to draw the sword. 

" We prayed and hoped, but still with awe 
The coming of the sword we saw ; 
We heard the nearing steps of doom 
And saw the shade of things to come. 

We hoped for peace, our eyes surveyed 
The blood-red dawn of freedom's day ; 
We prayed for love to loose the chain, 
'Tis shorn by battle's axe in twain. 

A redder sea than Egypt's wave 
Is piled and parted for the slave ; 
A. darker cloud moves on in light, 
A fiercer fire is guide by night." 

I close with the simple remark of the vanity of 
human greatness — a remark which, although it may 
have no direct logical connection with what I have 
said, — is too obviously suggested by the whole theme 
u])on which I speak to-day, to be omitted. 



23 

After Saladin, the champion of Islamism, had 
retaken the holy city, subjngated numerous fortresses 
in Syria, Arabia, Persia and Mesopotamia, and per- 
formed so many exploits in the crusades as to be 
designated " the great," he was seized with a disorder 
which threatened to wither up in a moment all his 
garlands of victory. Seeing that death was inevit- 
able, he called his herald who used to carry his banner 
before him, and taking the lance which he had so 
often shaken in battle, tied his shroud to the top and 
said to him. Go unfurl this in the camj) — it is the 
flag of the day — wave it in the air and exclaim, 
" This is all that remains of Saladin, the great, the 
conqueror, the king of the empire." It is the othce 
of this same herald that I perform to-day. I take the 
shroud of our murdered President, and fastening it, 
as it were, to the end of my trumpet, wave it before 
your eyes, exclaiming, this is all that remains of his 
hopes, plans, power, influence. 

One week ago Mr. Lixcolx was the most powerful 
man in this nation. Half a million of armed men 
were ready at an instant to do his bidding. His 
name was a tower of strength. Men everywhere 
delighted to do him honor, and the long desired 
object of his heart — that for which he had so 
intently labored and prayed — an unbroken union 
of all the states, seemed just within his grasp. 
"With a happy heart and a buoyant step he left 
his home. Loud acclamations welcomed him as 



24 

he entered a public assembly. Crowds turned their 
eager gaze upon one so highly and so deservedly 
honored. To-day he is a lifeless corpse, and while 
w^e speak, is being carried out, like any other man, to 
his burial. 

So ephemeral a thing is human greatness. And 
will men then fasten upon this as the supreme end of 
their being? Is it wise for any one to seek alone 
that from which at death he must be eternally parted ? 
O, no ; man has higher interests than those which 
belong to this world. 

" The wise man walks with God, 
Surveys far on the endless line of life, 
Values his soul, thinks of eternity, 
Both worlds considers, and provides for both." 



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